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William & Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation

About the Internship Program

A poster of "Engaging Underrepresented Undergraduates in Research and Evaluation" by Callie Edwards, Erin Huggins and Kevin Winn. Features average demographics, program overview, program impact, lessons learned and recommendations.
Edwards, Huggins and Winn created and presented this poster at the 2022 AAC&U Conference on Diversity, Equity, and Student Success in New Orleans, LA.

Key Components

Interns are selected based on their interest in education and developing research and evaluation skills. The internship consists of the following eight key components:

  • Partnership with Federal Work Study, requiring all interns to be work-study eligible
  • Hybrid Work and Flexible Scheduling to accommodate for student and PEER group safety and needs during the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Research and Evaluation Assignments, enabling interns to work on a variety of PEER group projects
  • Ongoing Training and Development via weekly check-in/training meetings and informal mentoring
  • Organizational Strategies, including Google Drive team and program administration folders and a Slack channel
  • Accountability Measures, including project logs, electronic journals and performance appraisals
  • Culminating Projects, including a final oral presentation to the PEER group and a final blog post for the Friday Institute website
  • Iterative Program Assessment, including monthly memos, pre-mid-post inventory surveys, exit interviews and focus groups

Intern Program Goal

Create a sustainable and equity-focused pipeline for future educational researchers and program evaluators.

Intern Program Outcomes

The program has three major outcomes:

  • Expose interns to the environment and exceptions of educational research and evaluation
  • Develop interns’ transferable workforce skills
  • Enhance PEER group operations

2020-2023 Intern Demographics

Graphic representation of average demographics from 2020-2023 of the internship program. Illustrates 15 students, 70% minorities, 30% sophomores, 20% juniors, 50% seniors, 80% first generation college students. 70% female, 30% male. 3.5 average gpa. 20% asian, 30% black, 20% hispanic, 20% white, 10% other. Majors represented: psychology, political science, statistics, elementary education, business administration, biology, aerospace engineering. Minors represented: linguistics, biology, nonprofit studies, spanish, english, women and gender studies, computer science.